


Demo and Inspection

by lick



Series: No Easy Distance [1]
Category: The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells
Genre: Corporation Rim Typical Awfulness, Dr. Mensah's POV, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29095617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lick/pseuds/lick
Summary: There are a number of things to do, and a number of arguments to be had, before a group can go on a survey trip. Dr. Mensah and Pin-Lee were running out of time to hammer out a deal with the bond company, and the required rental SecUnit had become the sticking point.--Or: Dr. Mensah "meets" Murderbot for the first time.
Series: No Easy Distance [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2146596
Comments: 27
Kudos: 110





	Demo and Inspection

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Демонстрация и проверка](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29924142) by [bitari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitari/pseuds/bitari)



> So... this is the first thing I've posted on AO3 in many years. It's a little scary to be sharing something I wrote again after all this time, so I hope you'll be gentle. I just absolutely loved the Murderbot Diaries, and have reread each book several times in the last month, and this story just kind of happened because of that.
> 
> MB mentions in All Systems Red and Artificial Condition how Dr. Mensah had seen its human face while she was trying to get out of renting it, and that she lodged a number of complaints. I wished that this scene was actually in the books, because it definitely did seem to affect MB's opinion on Mensah (even though it would tell you it didn't), and it just seemed like a really important event. So I wrote it myself.
> 
> I chose Mensah's POV because I loved _Home_ , and I wanted to explore her thoughts more.

Ayda was frazzled, tired, and wanted to go home. This was a problem, because they hadn’t even gotten to the ‘surveying an unexplored planet with potentially dangerous fauna’ part of the trip yet. She wanted to joke to Pin-Lee that after two weeks on Port FreeCommerce, arguing with, being defrauded by, and being surveilled by corporates, that their survey trip would be like a tropical vacation with occasional titration. She didn’t think it would be a very funny joke though, considering how absolutely obstinate the bond company had been about their security policy. They were going to a remote uninhabited planet, yes, but that was not nearly enough to escape corporate surveillance. Where there was surveillance, more arguing and more defrauding would follow.

The day before, she and Pin-Lee had a meeting with a Security Associate at the deployment centre that turned in a meeting with a Security Supervisor, and that meeting had turned into a meeting with the Security Deployment Manager. Little progress had been made, and when the clock ran past the Deployment Manager’s typical hours, he’d looked even more frustrated and told them that he would have to discuss their concerns with his supervisor. When he said that, Ayda and Pin-Lee had both smiled, and politely thanked him. As they left the office, Pin-Lee said in the feed, sardonically, _How many levels of management are there left to go?_

After a couple more hours waiting around on the overstuffed couches in the deployment center, they left late in the evening without scheduling an appointment with the next supervisor. Instead, Ayda had been stirred awake in the night by a feed alert that said that she had an appointment scheduled with the bond company’s General Security Manager at 0800. Ayda didn’t think it was a very good sign about how it was going to go that she’d been alerted to the meeting in the middle of the night. She couldn’t be sure of course, but she knew that scheduling events and obligations for the following morning and only alerting employees to them in the middle of the night was a common labor abuse tactic in the Corporation Rim, usually to give pretext to a punitive action against the employee. Ayda didn’t feel great about them using the tactic on her.

So, that morning Ayda had arrived at the deployment centre at 0745, having left Pin-Lee behind at the hotel because Pin-Lee had to go to the port today to pick up the rest of the survey team arriving from Preservation arriving later in the morning. The contracts with the different corporations were all supposed to be signed before the rest of the survey team arrived, so they were running behind on things already. It was now 0930 with no updates about her meeting, only reassurances from the secretary that if he received news, he would tell her.

Preservation wasn’t contracting with a Corporation Rim security company because they wanted to. If it had ever been up to her, she would’ve contracted with a wilderness ranger who worked in one of Preservation’s wildlife reserves. But the survey planet that the council had bid on was already owned by a corporate entity, and that speculator had an agreement with the bond company that required any survey teams be bonded with the company. Ayda figured the speculator was probably getting a cut for ‘referring’ them to the company.

Ayda started sorting through the files in her feed again while she waited. She opened up the long, itemized invoice so it would be available for reference. Getting ahold of the itemized invoice had been what initially required them to escalate their meeting with the Security Associate to the Security Supervisor. When they’d started voicing their objections to some of the specific items on the invoice, the supervisor had told them, “My hands are tied, all I can do is ask my superior to come talk to you. I don’t have the authority to adjust any of the line items.” Then, they had to wait two hours to speak to the Security Deployment Manager. Pin-Lee had spent those hours furiously writing reports to the survey administration back home. Even with the wormhole to Preservation open and stabilized so they could send messages home during their stay at Port FreeCommerce, it would take days for those messages to arrive, so Ayda personally didn’t see a point in writing a report until the deal with the bond company was already hashed out. She thought Pin-Lee was likely just writing them as an outlet for her irritation; she might not even send them. Ayda spent the wait reviewing the entire invoice, which had hundreds of items, one for every different piece of equipment they would rent.

When they’d finally had a chance to speak with the Security Deployment Manager, they’d made a little progress at first. He’d agreed to small discounts on various items within the habitat. The big objection though, that was the one they’d made no progress on. It was the SecUnit that the bond company insisted they were contractually obligated to rent, and Ayda had no intention of _that_ happening. The rental, on their itemized invoice, was by far the most expensive line item on the invoice, but it could’ve been free and Ayda still would have said no. She had highlighted the item in the shared feed and told the Security Deployment Manager, “We will absolutely not be renting a SecUnit. We have no need for it. A ranger or human guard is more than capable of providing security for this survey.”

The Security Deployment Manager had seemed to think it was something to do with the cost, like their other objections, and hadn’t seemed to realize this was a hard line for Ayda. He thought she was looking for another discount, it seemed. “Typically for small survey teams that only require one unit, like yours, we assign an older unit, because the unit will have more past experience to draw on if it needs to make judgements in an emergency situation,” he said. “Older units typically have higher rental fees because of their experiential learning data, and slightly higher reliability rates. If rental cost is an issue, perhaps we could come to an agreement to rent a newer unit.”

Ayda thought the biggest difference would likely be that a younger unit would be upgraded with even more sophisticated (and nosy) surveillance tech. No thanks. They hadn’t even bothered arguing over the surveillance aspect, because she and Pin-Lee both agreed that the unit’s role in datamining their information was probably the biggest reason why the company were requiring the rental, not the money.

Pin-Lee told him, “No, I don’t think you understand. This isn’t about the cost. Renting the unit would be in violation of PreservationAux’s values.”

The manager looked bored. “Not renting a unit would be in violation of our standard safety protocols.” It was after that that he’d sent them away and told them to talk it over with the next level of management.

So that was how she’d found herself here, having waited over ninety minutes for yet another corporate supervisor to give her the time of day. Ayda was more than capable of doing this by herself—she hadn’t been elected to the steering committee for nothing—but it was lonely waiting in the lobby without Pin-Lee. Pin-Lee had just sent her a message in the feed, _The ship just arrived through the wormhole and filed for docking. Port feed says their ETA is 10 minutes._

Ayda acknowledged the message. She really needed to get this contract signed today. They could stretch it out further if they couldn’t hammer out the deal today, but it would be expensive for Preservation, and because Arada and Overse had already signed a contract for their next job after this one, they would probably have to cut days off the survey trip itself if they couldn’t leave Port FreeCommerce on time.

Ayda was trying to figure out what to say to Pin-Lee (“I’m just going to take their shitty deal because we need to do our research” wasn’t going to cut it) when the secretary cleared his throat. “Dr. Mensah, she’s on her way,” he said.

Ayda looked up, just in time to see a thin, pale woman stepping through the door. All the other supervisors so far had been men. She was wearing cream colored high heels and a tight, jade dress. Her long platinum hair was pulled tightly into a high ponytail. That had to be the supervisor. Ayda stood up, grateful that she had worn pumps herself that day. If she’d worn her flats like she’d been tempted to this woman would’ve towered over her.

“Dr. Mensah,” she greeted. “My name is Corinne. I’m the General Security Manager at this deployment centre.” She held out her hand.

“A pleasure,” Ayda said, taking Corinne’s hand and shaking it.

“I’m hoping we’ll be able to come to an agreement today,” Corinne said. “Please come with me.”

Ayda followed her through the door that Corinne had come from, deeper into the deployment centre than she’d been taken before. The plush carpet floor gave way to synthetic stone, and their heels clicked on it as they walked. This area was an access hallway. To her left was a locked double door, with small windows into the area beyond. There were rows and rows of white boxes, not much larger than the typical changing booths offered in a clothing store.

Corinne walked quickly, and Ayda had to hurry along to keep pace, but they didn’t walk far. About thirty feet down the hall, Corinne stopped and placed her hand against the scanner on a door. It glowed green, and the door slid open. Ayda followed her inside.

Ayda stopped at the threshold, a little surprised because she had expected the room to be empty when they came inside. Instead, there were four others in there aside from herself and Corinne. One was another prettily dressed woman, who was sitting with her legs crossed on one of the arm chairs across from Corinne’s desk, flicking through a touchscreen interface. Two others were standing on the right side wall, dressed less formally, in clothing that looked more suited for mechanical work than for a business meeting. They also both had projectile weapons strapped to their hips. They both had their eyes on the last person. That last person stood rigidly straight in front of the back wall. They wore a thin, cheap t-shirt with the bond company's logo screenprinted above the breast and athletic pants. The shining metal joint on the inside of their elbow that elegantly curved over the forearm to what was clearly a port of some sort was what told Ayda this person wasn’t a human. Humans didn’t have augments like that on their arms. They had prosthetics. Aside from that detail, Ayda was a little startled by its human face, and all the light brown skin that was shown by the short sleeved shirt. All of the brochures from the company had only included photographs of SecUnits in armor. Ayda had just sort of… assumed it wasn’t removable.

Corinne gestured, waving her hand at it and said, “Generally, we allow clients to inspect their SecUnit after signing the contract but before departing the station. We know that your group is inexperienced with SecUnits though, so I thought it might make it easier for you to agree to our terms if you were given an opportunity for a demo and inspection ahead of time.”

So they thought she was scared of it.

Ayda’s gaze shifted from Corinne back to the SecUnit. It startled her a little bit because when she looked at it, they made eye contact. When she had walked into the room, it had been looking at the right wall, but now it was looking directly at her. Their eyes met briefly, and almost as soon as they did its eyes widened a little. Then, its gaze dropped, and it looked towards the ground. Only its eyes had moved, nothing else. The ramrod straight posture and total stillness were strange and alien, but there was a human-like recognition in those eyes that she identified the moment they’d made eye contact. Suddenly, she felt angry. She thought back to the stupid brochure still loaded to her interface that assured her that despite the human neural tissue, constructs weren’t smart. Weren’t aware. _Nonsentient, give me a break_ , she thought.

“I think we’ve had a miscommunication,” Ayda said.

Corinne’s expression was stony and flat. She gestured towards the currently unoccupied arm chair across from the desk and said, “Please, have a seat.”

Ayda sat down. Corinne sat down in the desk chair across from her, and folded her arms on the desk. “Really, Dr. Mensah, I can assure you that SecUnits are perfectly safe. You won’t have anything to fear with it in your habitat. The governor module keeps it completely under your direction. Kain could hit it with a projectile right now and it wouldn’t move an inch.”

Ayda took a deep breath, her eyes widening as she glanced at the two employees who were standing against the right wall. One already had his hand resting on the small projectile weapon strapped to his waist. “No, no, no,” Ayda said quickly, shaking her hands. She was disturbed by the casual cruelty. She didn’t know if it was wired to feel pain, but she didn’t want to see it get shot anymore than she wanted to see anyone else get shot. Which she didn’t want at all. She made sure to steady her voice, even and unwavering. “I can assure you, that won’t be necessary. As I said, we’ve had a miscommunication.”

Corinne pressed her lips together, and then said, “And what is that miscommunication?”

“I’m not refusing the rental because I don’t think it’s safe,” Ayda said, sharply. “The unit going rogue and hurting survey members is the last thing on my mind. It’s not about the money, either, I’m not looking for a discount. I don’t want to rent a SecUnit because we don’t want it, we don’t need it, and frankly, in Preservation we consider the production of constructs immoral.”

The woman who was sitting in the other chair spoke up then, setting aside her interface. “Dr. Mensah, let me assure you, it is not as intelligent as a bot’s rights activist would have you think. The human neural tissue adds enough intelligence for it to analyze human behavior to identify threats, and that is all.”

“If it wasn’t cognizant, it wouldn’t need a governor module, would it?” Ayda rebutted.

“All bots with autonomous behavior have some sort of controlling function to disallow unacceptable actions,” the other woman said. Her thin brows knit together. Corinne had been cold, but this woman’s air was distinctly unfriendly.

“You want to tell me an autonomous bot isn’t smart?” Ayda said back. She knew it was a circular argument, and wouldn’t get her anywhere, but at this point she had a feeling that _nothing_ she said was going to make a difference. They hadn’t sent her the alert about this meeting in the middle of the night because that was how long it had taken to secure it. And they certainly hadn’t tried to surprise her with a SecUnit and armed guards in the room because they wanted her to feel safe.

The other woman said, “Dr. Mensah, I know you do things differently in your polity, but autonomy doesn’t compel sentience. It has the brains to make situation assessments and take appropriate action. That’s it.” 

Ayda was growing irritated with the lying. It seemed like the unit’s functionality, and intelligence, were claimed to be whatever was the most convenient to the company at the moment. The other side of the argument was circular too. She said, “I don’t think any of us can know if it’s sentient or not. You add enough intelligence for it to distinguish a best course of action, but you add an inhibitor so it can’t take any action that’s not pre-approved. That sounds like a hellish compromise.” She looked over at it, and saw its eyes dart away from her, towards the far corner, as soon as she did. She wondered if it had been sneaking glances at them the entire conversation.

“Dr. Mensah, just because it has human components doesn’t mean it is a human. It certainly won’t act like one during your trip,” Corinne said, her voice gentler than the other woman’s, who she seemed a little bit irritated with, stealing her own glances at her.

Before Ayda could reply, the other woman jumped in, and said firmly, “There is no room for compromise here, Dr. Mensah. This is a waste of my time and yours. We’ve entertained your objections, and tried to soothe them, but the SecUnit rental is non-negotiable.”

This had all been a waste. Why had Ayda bothered to come? Arguing with the lower level managers had been one thing, but it had not been a great idea to come see these high level supervisors without Pin-Lee. Ayda had been ignoring the feed, but she couldn’t help but to check it now, seeing the update Pin-Lee had sent her only a moment ago that she had just met with the others at the port. Ayda wished she was there with them. Or anywhere else, really. She took a deep breath, and said, “Surely you have augmented human security we could hire. We’d pay more, even.”

“No, we don’t send human security agents on planetary surveys. The risk assessment is too high,” the other woman said bluntly. Ayda didn’t really expect anything else, at that point. Ayda wondered why the other woman hadn’t been introduced by Corinne. Since she still had her attention mostly in the feed, Ayda tried to see if she was broadcasting any identifiers through her augment, but she wasn’t. Ayda wondered idly if she was even more senior than Corinne. Instead she just smiled, hoped they would take that as her way of saying, _it was worth a shot._

Corinne smiled apologetically, and told her, “Believe me, Dr. Mensah, you’ll be safer with the SecUnit. In a crisis, its reaction speed will be way faster than any humans.”

The other woman said icily, “If its nonnegotiable for PreservationAux, I’m sure another group would be interested in your option on the planet.”

Ayda sighed. She had a feeling it would end like this, a threat to cancel the contract altogether if she kept arguing. There weren’t many scenarios where the survey team could go back home and the survey council would call their mission a complete failure, but having the contract canceled altogether before they even got to the planet was one. There wasn’t any leverage. “No, that won’t be necessary,” she said. She glanced at the SecUnit one last time. It wasn’t even looking in her direction anymore. When she had been looking away, it had turned its head towards the corner beside it. A part of her felt ashamed, to have talked about it like this right in front of it. Questioned its awareness. She would never have discussed a human like that in front of them, as if they weren’t there, didn’t get a say. Was she any better than these corporate supervisors, in its eyes? Surely not. “The rest of the survey group has arrived at the port,” she told Corinne, “I’d like to finalize the group contract now. We need to get the individual agreements signed tomorrow.”

It was a surrender. It was always going to be one, wasn’t it? She might be one of the most powerful people at home in the Preservation Alliance, but here in the Corporation Rim there was so little she could do. Except get her research done, and get her people home at the end.

That was all she was expected to do.

It still felt like a failure.


End file.
